Night Terror
by anipwrites
Summary: Nathaniel Kurtzberg is used to the occasional sleepless night. But three in a row? Not to even mention, he keeps seeing things... was he going crazy? Or is something sinister afoot? He was going to find out, whether he wanted to or not.


**Hello, and welcome to Night Terror!**

 **If I'm going to be completely honest? I wrote this between the hours of 12 am and 2 am like last week. The first line just came to mind while I was sitting in the middle of the living room and this happened.**

 **Hope you guys like it! Also shoutout to wishfulina for beta'ing this fic for me!**

* * *

It was the third night in a row that he found himself unable to sleep.

Sea blue eyes stared up at the ceiling, desperately wishing that he could close his eyes for just one moment. Anything longer than a blink, really. He _needed_ to sleep.

Three days of nothing but staying awake was a nightmare of a reality. The first day, he scarcely noticed it. He'd stayed up drawing in his sketchbook, and scarcely realized it was 4 am until he went to text Luka and saw the time. Next thing he knew, it was sunrise, and another page had been filled with doodles. No problem. He slept all the time in classes anyways- - he'd make up for it then.

But he couldn't. Whenever he closed his eyes to try and rest, he felt as if something was creeping up on him. The darkness of his own eyelids sent his heart pounding. He… he swore he could hear whispers.

This, unfortunately, wasn't necessarily unusual on its own. Ever since he'd been akumatized, it had been happening- - sometimes he'd lay down to sleep, only to feel as if a swarm of black butterflies were closing in on him, ready to consume his very soul. He wasn't sure if it was a taboo side effect of akumatization that no one spoke of, or if he was just an extremely unlucky person. But it usually only lasted the night.

It had been three agonizingly long days.

Light melded into shadow, shadows reached out to brush their spindly fingers against his clothes and skin. An ever-present chill brought goose bumps along his arms, hair standing on end. Black butterflies darted in and out of his peripheral vision, but turning to see them just made him look insane. He couldn't keep his eyes closed for Mme. Bustier's breathing exercises, he couldn't relax even though he wanted to so badly.

He wanted this endless night to be done with, already.

Phantom pains wrenched at his wrist- - midway through chemistry class that day, he dropped his pencil and was unable to pick it back up with his left hand. Glasses of water shook uncontrollably, and he couldn't even hold finger foods long enough to eat them. Not that it mattered- - anything he tried to eat wouldn't stay down. Butterflies raved to a beatless melody in his stomach, only growing more frenzied as people looked at him. Lately that feeling hadn't gone away.

His sketchbook's most recent pages were filled with inky black butterflies- - it was all his hands had been able to draw or paint last night. That, or the eyes. Wide, ghastly eyes stared up at him from the page. They peered at him through the walls as taunting voices giggled from the vents, creaks of the wood floors teasing at his door. His hamster's wheel creaked and creaked as Scribble ran along on a never-ending path, a never-ending journey to no destination. It grinded in his ears.

Everyone always talked about tortured artists. Was this it? Was he going to snap? Would he be stuck drawing eyes and akumas for the rest of his life? Or was this some sort of transformation, and he'd emerge out of this as a better artist like a caterpillar left its cocoon as a butterfly?

If this lasted any longer, he was going to go nuts and _die_ in his cocoon. Part of him feared it'd be by his own hand. He had to get a grip. He needed the voices to just _stop._

And stop they did. Everything stopped. It was like time froze. Scribble fell still, legs outstretched mid-stride over the smooth plastic of the wheel. The whispers quieted, if only for a moment. But then butterflies swarmed his vision, and a voice of dark poison dripped down into his being, coursing through his ears, a sickly sweet taste trapped in his mouth.

He couldn't understand what was happening. The chill that had surrounded him evolved into a freezing blast, forcing him to shudder against the darkness. He could see nothing through the deep darkness of the butterflies' wings. Nothing except for two glowing, purple eyes, some sort of Cheshire-esque enigma. Everywhere he turned, the eyes were there. He couldn't escape their glare. The voice kept whispering in his ear, promises of greatness that was just in his reach, promises of punishment should he fail. Promises that the night would end if he just obeyed.

He just wanted the madness, the ever-present noises grating at his ears to end. He'd never said 'yes' to anything faster.

* * *

He wasn't sure what was worse, the neverending cacophony, or the deafening silence. There was nothing in the abyss, no one. It was so silent, he couldn't hear himself think. He could barely feel his own existence, as if the longer he stayed trapped in this soundless hell, the more he'd fade away. He'd forget himself. He already has, whatever there was to remember. There was nothing in the silence. Nothing mattered.

* * *

Nathaniel shot out of bed at the sound of his morning alarm, prying his way out of the darkness of sleep. His heart pounded as if he'd been up against some sort of enemy. His body ached, as if he'd run a marathon through the night. He forced himself out of bed, if only to get his incessant alarm to quiet.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and saw a mess of wild red hair, and a big bruise along the right side of his face. A bruise of black, purple, and green. Where did it come from? He felt that he should remember… _something._ Oddly enough, the bruise looked like a butterfly's wing, as if it was ripped off of one by a brutal attacker. Cat claws came to mind.

His phone buzzed against the table, a melody of guitar strings that made his heart swell. _Luka._ he picked up the phone and answered it. "Hello- - ?"

"Nathaniel! Are you okay, what happened last night?!" Luka's harried voice asked on the other end. Nathaniel's heart froze for a moment- - he'd never heard him so worried before, and he felt horrible that he didn't have an answer.

"I-I-I don't know? I woke up in my room, I don't remember doing _anything_ last night, I- - what did you see?"

"Check the Ladyblog. Are you doing alright?"

"...I'm exhausted, aching, and I have a giant bruise on my face. Hang on a second," he moved the phone away from his face to take a picture. He noticed hints of purple in his veins along his arms and on his face. Oof, that didn't look good. Maybe he should stay home from school today…

A notification sounded on his screen- - a Ladyblog notification. As he shook his mouse to wake up the computer, he saw- - oh shit, that was a fuckton of notifications. Something was blowing up, and he was involved somehow. On the Ladyblog? This couldn't be good…

"Luka? You still there?" he asked, a tremor in his voice.

"Yeah, babe. I'm here."

"I'm… I'm about to read these Ladyblog notifications. Please stay."

"I'm right here."

Okay. Okay, he could do this. He clicked the mouse and prepared for the worst. There was a video. Oh no. He pressed play.

Haunted screams echoed at him from the screen, two little girls crying and shrieking. Alya was yelling at a ghastly figure on the screen, striding towards the open window. More screams echoed from the streets of Paris.

"Hey! Who are you?! What did you do to my sisters?!" Alya shouted, phone shaky as Nathaniel could only assume her heart pounded and her adrenaline spiked. The figure turned, and Nathaniel's heart jumped as he found himself on the screen.

Well, not himself, exactly. Purple veins were spread along his body, his hair was wild, his eyes glowed yellow. He looked like he came straight out of a horror movie, a haunted soul that wandered foggy hills and abandoned hospital rooms. There were chains on his arms and legs, a metal collar around his neck with a trailing chain dragging down in front of him.

"How about I _show_ you, Cesaire?" the akuma asked in a hiss of a voice, raising a hand that began to glow purple as his eyes changed to a similar hue and a charged up orb appeared above his palms. Before he could cast it out, a yo-yo's string wrapped around his wrist and pulled it back, sending the attack careening into the ceiling above Alya's head. The akuma grit his teeth and turned, leaping down into the streets below to address Ladybug face-to-face, greeting her with a glowing attack before Chat Noir ran out of an alley and in front of the glowing orb. The cat-themed hero fell to the floor, shrieking in terror and pulling at his hair, convulsing on the floor.

"Nath? Nath, are you- - " Luka began to ask.

"Gotta go," Nathaniel's weak legs somehow found the strength to race him to the restroom just in time to throw up… whatever he was managing to throw up right now. He shouldn't have looked down- - never look down at your own puke, they always said, it just made it worse- - but some sort of morbid curiosity overtook him in that moment.

The toilet was filled with an inky black liquid, but amongst it were dark black butterfly wings. A thin papery texture rested on his tongue, but began to move. He reached a few fingers in, and thin legs tickled against them as he pulled out an entire butterfly- - an akuma.

After throwing up _again,_ he flushed the toilet.

As he sank back into his desk chair, he couldn't help but spot the time. It was getting late- - he'd already get to school late, at this point. Was there a point in going? As he scrolled through the comments, seeing so many mentions of his Ladyblog username in the comments after Chloe Bourgeois identified him as Night Terror, he decided he wasn't ready to deal with that bullshit. Not today, at least.

"Nathaniel? Can you hear me?"

"O-Oh, sorry, Luka, I was just thinking." Nathaniel sighed as he glowered at the screen. "I… don't think I'm going to go to school today."

"That's understandable, after what you went through. Want me to come over? I can bring the guitar."

"That'd be great, actually. You know where I am."

"Alright, I'm on my way. See you soon, babe." the phone hung up with a quiet beep, leaving Nathaniel to continue scrolling through comments. Turns out they all weren't as bad as he'd anticipated- - sure, Chloe and a few other trolls were insisting that he was entirely responsible for apparently sending Chat Noir and half the city (damn, half the city?) into a personalized nightmare hell realm- - but a lot of other people were coming to his defense. Some were even asking if he was okay. What the experience was like, what he'd gone through that was horrible enough to create such a terrifyingly powerful akuma. He cracked his knuckles and typed out a response.

 _Hey, DessiNath here. Basically just woke up and saw this video._

 _Yeah, that was me. I was Night Terror. Though, I don't really remember doing any of that, watching the video, even_ I _could tell that was me. I'm ashamed that it happened, and I apologize for any damage Night Terror caused._

 _Though we all need to remember, I wasn't in control of my actions at that point. I was being manipulated by Hawkmoth. So instead of attacking me, we all need to focus on the real enemy here._

 _To everyone asking if I'm okay, I really appreciate it. I'm doing better. Though I must say, my akumatization this time was… strange. The Miraculous Cure didn't fix me, I've still got some bruises, but they'll go away. Also I barfed up butterflies, so that's something to take note of._

 _I'll go into more detail of how this all built up later, right now I'm really tired. My boyfriend's coming over, and I'm skipping school today because I couldn't take good notes if I wanted to. Sorry if this post is really incoherent, but_ I'm _really incoherent right now._

 _Peace out,_

 _DessiNath._

He considered attaching a picture of his current condition. Would that just cause more embarrassment? Would people poke fun at him? Whatever. He was too tired to care. He picked Scribble up out of his cage and held him in his hand, tried his best to smile into the computer's camera, and took the picture, attaching it to the post at the bottom. He looked horrible, but after what he'd gone through he had a right to.

He pressed the post button just as the doorbell to the apartment rang. Finally, after days of maddening noise, he could just lay in his bed with his boyfriend and relax.

He was definitely owed the peace.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading my fic, Night Terror! I hope you all enjoyed it!**

 **I know it's been ages since I've updated any of my other fics, and I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out the next chapter for Disposables. Once I do that, I'll work on The Living Nightmare again.**

 **Until then, have a good day/night/evening! Tomorrow is Juneteenth, so if you celebrate that, then happy Juneteenth! Also, last Friday was Eid al-Fitr, so happy belated Eid al-Fitr!**

 **See you guys later!**


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